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Policy News, Conservative Analysis and OpinionSun, 02 Aug 2015 19:37:08 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.1How to Make the Case to Liberals That Conservatives Have Hearts, Toohttp://dailysignal.com/2015/08/02/how-to-make-the-case-to-liberals-that-conservatives-have-hearts-too/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/08/02/how-to-make-the-case-to-liberals-that-conservatives-have-hearts-too/#commentsSun, 02 Aug 2015 07:01:40 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194083Being conservative in a politically correct culture has never been easy. Whether you’re a politician trying to explain a controversial sound-bite or a voter attempting... Read More

]]>Being conservative in a politically correct culture has never been easy. Whether you’re a politician trying to explain a controversial sound-bite or a voter attempting to defend your stance on a hot-button issue to co-workers, you either grow a thick skin—or learn to keep quiet.

Sadly, you get used to having your motives impugned by people who assume that no one could possibly believe what you believe. You must have some ulterior motive, right? Say, for example, we need less regulation, and you’ll be accused of shilling for some corporation. Call for more defense spending, and you’re a warmonger.

It’s an old trick, clearly designed to save the accuser from having to marshal any actual evidence for his position. But it usually works. Everyone retreats to his corner, leaving us with poorly thought out policies that wind up helping no one.

Small wonder, then, that the phrase “compassionate conservative” entered the political lexicon at one point. The defensive character of that label is understandable, but think about it: It resonates only if you assume that conservatives lack compassion in the first place.

Yes, some of them do (you find flawed human beings on both sides of the aisle), but only the most superficial analysis could conclude that conservatism attracts only those who don’t care about their fellow citizens. In fact—irony alert—conservative solutions often spring from a genuine desire to help people.

Take welfare reform. If you criticize a huge government program that hands out checks with virtually no strings attached, opponents say you must hate the poor. On the contrary: If you care about your fellow man, you know that turning him into a passive welfare recipient robs him of his dignity and often dooms his children to a soul-deadening cycle of poverty. Making sure that welfare is a true hand up and not a hand-out is, in fact, the true compassionate stance.

The problem is that many conservatives fail to frame the issues this way. As American Enterprise Institute President Arthur Brooks points out in his new book, “The Conservative Heart,” we need a new approach.

“The only way to set things right is for conservatives to show we care and offer a new vision for the country,” he writes. “This new vision must be guided by the optimism of opportunity. It must declare peace on a prudent, reliable safety net for those who truly need it. It must harness the tools of private entrepreneurship, acknowledge the profound value of hard work, and echo the moral clarity of the Good Samaritan.”

Brooks introduces us to people who illustrate all too well what happens when government policies run amok. Take Jestina Clayton. When she moved to Utah from Sierra Leone, she decided to pursue her piece of the American Dream by starting an African hair-braiding business for children adopted from her native land.

Jestina had been braiding hair since she was five, and the business was soon providing a steady paycheck. Then someone told her that it was illegal to do such work without a cosmetology license, which would take 2,000 hours of classes and cost $16,000. And all for something she already knew how to do.

It took a lot of work and a successful lawsuit for Jestina to get her happy ending. (A federal judge ruled that such a requirement, which far exceeded the ones for many other professions, was unreasonable.) But as Brooks notes, she’s one of the lucky ones.

“Millions of Americans without her drive, grit—and the help of a law firm—have little hope to rise in America,” he writes. “Currently, all they are offered are promises that the government will stick it more to the rich through higher taxes and greater redistribution. But this will never help a poor American climb out of poverty, find a better job, and get a good education—let alone start a business.”

As conservatives, we know that our policies help provide opportunity for all. But we can never assume others know that. It’s time to take “heart”—and make sure they do.

]]>Federal and state governments spent $1.02 trillion on welfare in 2014—an increase of $274 billion, or 36 percent, since 2003 after adjusting for inflation. At the federal level, the welfare bureaucracy spans numerous agencies and includes more than 80 different means-tested aid programs that provide cash, food, housing, medical care and social services to poor and low-income Americans. These programs range from public housing and food stamps to direct cash benefits through the earned income tax credit (EITC) and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

The rapid growth in welfare spending has been driven by two interrelated factors. First, over time, more people above the poverty level have been made eligible for higher benefits. For instance, a forthcoming paper in the journal Demography finds that welfare benefits going to single parents with incomes less than half of the poverty level have decreased by 35 percent over the 1983 to 2004 period, whereas benefits to single parents making almost twice the poverty level have increased by 80 percent.

A second factor driving the growth of welfare spending is the lack of incentives built into the system for states to be good stewards of the federal programs that they administer. About 75 percent of welfare spending is federal, with the remainder contributed by states; however, states administer the programs and therefore have—but do not exercise—the capacity to constrain welfare growth. Instead, states use their discretionary authority to expand welfare while at the same time underinvesting in anti-fraud activities.

For instance, a recent report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that Massachusetts had just 37 fraud investigators responsible for guaranteeing that no one among the 888,000 people with SNAP benefits, the 1,273,000 receiving Medicaid, and the 92,000 with TANF cash assistance was abusing the program.

Far from being a compassionate series of programs worthy of defense against reform, the current welfare architecture has been a disaster for struggling communities and has done its gravest disservice to recipients themselves. The damage has been twofold.

First, the existing welfare system undermines work. By offering a generous system of entitlements to able-bodied adults without any obligation to work or prepare for work, welfare undermines the need and motivation for self-support. Welfare is primarily a system of one-way handouts: Only two out of more than 80 means-tested welfare programs include even modest work or training requirements.

Second, nearly all of these means-tested welfare programs impose significant penalties against marriage. For 50 years, welfare has driven fathers from the home. As a consequence, single mothers have become increasingly dependent on government aid. Meanwhile, low-income fathers, deprived of meaningful roles as husbands and breadwinners, have drifted into the margins of society. Their attachment to the labor force has deteriorated, and the tendency toward self-destructive and anti-social behavior has increased.

But the greatest victims of the anti-marriage incentives embedded in the welfare system have been children. Children raised without fathers in the home are substantially more likely to experience emotional and behavioral problems, to be expelled from or drop out of school, and to engage in juvenile and adult crime.

Nicholas Kristof in The New York Times has reflected on the unintended negative side-effects of welfare. Analyzing the Supplemental Security Income program for children, he recently wrote that “America’s safety net can sometimes entangle people in soul-crushing dependency. Our poverty programs do rescue many people, but other times they backfire.”

Costing over $1 trillion per year, the current welfare system is enormous, but much of this spending is counterproductive. Today’s welfare programs undermine work and marriage, leading to a broadening pattern of intergenerational dependence and self-defeating behaviors.

Furthermore, if work provides benefits besides monetary compensation (such as a greater connection to society), the fact that welfare discourages work may have severe and immense long-term consequences. This shift in cultural standards is already having deep effects in other areas, such as the ability to build lasting relationships that increase opportunity and general fulfillment.

Welfare should provide aid to those who genuinely need it, but it should also strive to mobilize the best efforts of the poor to help themselves. The foundations of the welfare state must be revamped to promote rather than discourage work and marriage.

To accomplish this, all able-bodied, non-elderly adult recipients of means-tested welfare benefits should be required to work, or at least prepare for work, as a condition of receiving aid. In addition, welfare’s current financial penalties against marriage must be reduced. Reforming the welfare system in this manner would best serve the interests of the poor, the taxpayers and society at large.

]]>A thriving society needs a strong economy. The reverse is just as true: A healthy economy is built on a vibrant culture that promotes individual and social well-being.

It’s helpful to think of a society as an ecosystem—one in which cultural, political and economic spheres greatly overlap. As in any ecosystem, change in one sector reverberates across the entire system.

Take marriage, for example, a most foundational socio-economic institution. In America, this institution has been in a decades-long decline; fewer children are born to and raised throughout their entire childhood by their married mothers and fathers. Voluminous social scientific research suggests that children raised in non-intact families tend to fare less well on a host of outcomes, including educational achievement and economic mobility. Today, more than half of all American children have spent at least some portion of their childhood in non-intact households. The implications of this trend are felt throughout all sectors of society.

Last week, The Heritage Foundation released its second annual Index of Culture and Opportunity. It examines the trends prevailing in 31 cultural indicators that influence opportunity in America, including the health of marriage and the family, respect for life, educational and economic opportunity, self-sufficiency, volunteering, and labor force participation.

As Yuval Levin, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and the editor of National Affairs, puts it: “The institutions [the Index] tracks are those that fill the space between the individual and the state: families, schools, local religious and civic institutions, and a robust free economy. The trends it follows chart the state of the core prerequisites for a flourishing society. The questions it asks are those that conservatives take to be essential to understanding the state of American life. And the answers it finds are, in all too many cases, quite distressing.”

The health of our society is distressing because, in the past decade, too many Americans have detached from the vital institutions, continuing trends that began much earlier. For example, the marriage rate is at an all-time low. More than two of every five children are born outside marriage. Fewer Americans volunteer. Religious attendance has declined.

Furthermore, self-sufficiency has not increased. Instead, government spends over $1 trillion annually on roughly 80 means-tested welfare programs that seem to keep people trapped in poverty and dependence. Meanwhile, reading proficiency remains flat, and labor force participation continues to lag.

Despite the negative trends, there are some bright spots. Divorce rates have declined since the 1980s, the crime rate continues on a downward course and the abortion rate has dropped precipitously. As Charmaine Yoest, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, notes, “[w]e now have fewer abortions than at any time since legalization in 1973.”

Rates of divorce, crime and abortion are still too high, but these downward trends are promising. Furthermore, more families today have access to private-school choice, which, as research shows, has promising results. Overall, however, the index shows much movement away from the institutions that promote opportunity.

Trends can change, though, if enough people recognize a problem and work to reverse course. A prime example is how the pro-life movement has successfully worked to promote restrictions on abortion and to decrease the number of children whose lives are ended by this practice.

“Addressing America’s current social and economic dysfunction will be no easy feat,” Levin said. “In order to try, society needs a clear picture of the challenges it confronts. That means first asking the right questions, an endeavor often thwarted by the politics of ‘issues’ and the radical individualism that is so endemic today. In that respect, at least, this index is not merely an insightful diagnosis but the beginning of a cure.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/08/01/cultural-woes-affect-our-economy-too/feed/0Miracle Preemie Released From Hospital After Nearly a Year in North Dakota NICUhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/miracle-preemie-released-from-hospital-after-nearly-a-year-in-north-dakota-nicu/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/miracle-preemie-released-from-hospital-after-nearly-a-year-in-north-dakota-nicu/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 20:09:58 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194580For Becky and Bo Frolek, August 12th represents a milestone they hardly could have imagined this time last year. The couple, who live in Fargo,... Read More

]]>For Becky and Bo Frolek, August 12th represents a milestone they hardly could have imagined this time last year.

The couple, who live in Fargo, North Dakota, will celebrate their son Trevor’s first birthday–and the long way he’s come.

Born at just 23 weeks, Trevor spent 345 days in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at a hospital in Fargo. He weighed only one pound, six ounces at birth; he was so small that dad Bo’s wedding ring could fit around his foot.

“The doctors and nurses have worked so hard to get him to this point,” Becky Frolek told TODAY. “It’s beyond amazing.”

Today, the smiling, 20-pound baby is nothing short of a miracle.

“It has been quite a journey,” Becky wrote on Facebook. “We are blessed to have Trevor at home! God is good! Prayers are answered!”

Becky’s pregnancy began normally enough, as the couple excitedly prepared for a December 2014 labor. But just before she was set to begin her third trimester, Becky noticed something wrong. She started cramping in mid-August, and was rushed to Essentia Health in Fargo where she gave birth to her son.

Delicate baby Trevor was put on life support because he could not breathe on his own.

“It was scary but he was more human-like than I expected. All his fingers, all his toes, everything was there … just so tiny,” Becky told TODAY. “His skin was so transparent and fragile.”

Not knowing if their son would live, Bo had a priest baptize their son.

“The doctor told us it was going to be a rollercoaster ride,” Bo told WDAF-TV. “We were going to have our good days and we’re going to have our bad days.”

The Frolek family. (Photo: Bo Frolek/Facebook)

That doctor turned out to be spot on.

“A lot of days we left here and were not sure we would see him again,” Essentia Health’s lead NICU nurse Erin Kuehl told WDAF-TV. “To see him do well … this is the best reward we could ask for.”

During Trevor’s stay at the hospital, he had surgery on his heart and on his eyes, which were fused shut at birth.

Last Friday, after a full year of care, Trevor was able to go home. The nurses and doctors who took care of Trevor attended a celebration for the family.

Trevor will still need physical and occupational therapy, and remains on both an oxygen line and a feeding tube. His parents are alerted to any potential problems by a connected monitor, but doctors say he should have a normal childhood.

For now, he’s relishing his days with mom, dad, and big sister Brookelyn. And, in a couple months time, he’ll become a big brother.

“I am nervous, excited. I am sure there will be tears,” Becky told WDAF-TV. “I hope I have what it takes.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/miracle-preemie-released-from-hospital-after-nearly-a-year-in-north-dakota-nicu/feed/0One College’s War Against Terms ‘Mothering’ and ‘Fathering’http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/one-colleges-war-against-terms-mothering-and-fathering/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/one-colleges-war-against-terms-mothering-and-fathering/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 19:32:48 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194582The University of New Hampshire’s “Bias-Free Language Guide” considers the words “mothering” and “fathering” to be problematic, biased language. According to Campus Reform, the guide... Read More

]]>The University of New Hampshire’s “Bias-Free Language Guide” considers the words “mothering” and “fathering” to be problematic, biased language.

According to Campus Reform, the guide suggests replacing “mothering” and “fathering” with words such as “parenting” in order to “avoid gendering a non-gendered activity.”

Originally published in 2013, the guide gained attention recently following Campus Reform’s piece.

In response to widespread backlash, including a tweet from presidential candidate Donald Trump, University of New Hampshire President Mark Huddleston issued a statement distancing the guide from official school policy:

“I want to make it absolutely clear that the views expressed in this guide are NOT the policy of the University of New Hampshire. . . . It is ironic that was probably a well-meaning effort to be ‘sensitive’ proves offensive to many people, myself included.”

University of New Hampshire has subsequently blocked the page, making the guide inaccessible.

In its efforts to be ‘sensitive’, The Bias-Free Language Guide ignores an important truth: mothering and fathering are in fact distinct and cannot be considered “non-gendered activities”.

In a recent Daily Signal piece, The Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson makes the point that “there is no such thing as ‘parenting.’ There is mothering, and there is fathering, and children do best with both.”

Sociology, psychology, and biology all support the fact that the complementary interactions mothers and fathers have with their children make a difference in the child’s development.

For example, the distinctiveness of fathers is shown by the fact that 35 percent of girls in the United States whose fathers left before age 6 became pregnant as teenagers.

By contrast, only 5 percent of girls whose fathers stayed with them throughout childhood became pregnant as teenagers.

Through seeking to eradicate the “exclusive” terms “mothering” and “fathering” in favor of the gender-neutral “parenting,” the University of New Hampshire’s Bias-Free Language Guide disregards the distinct sacrifices and contributions that mothers and fathers make for their children.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/one-colleges-war-against-terms-mothering-and-fathering/feed/0Cartoon: What The Mainstream Media Are Ignoring This Weekhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/cartoon-what-the-mainstream-medias-ignoring-this-week/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/31/cartoon-what-the-mainstream-medias-ignoring-this-week/#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 16:15:56 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194536Genevieve Wood wrote about Planned Parenthood and the media in her column earlier this week: In the case of the unfolding scandal involving the nation’s... Read More

“The group circulated a memo to reporters and producers late Monday that discouraged them from airing the undercover videos, arguing that they were obtained under false identification and violated patient privacy.

“Those patients’ privacy should not be further violated by having this footage shared by the media,’ the memo reads.”

Here’s the problem: as anyone who has watched the third video knows, there are no patients shown in the video.

No, what Planned Parenthood would presumably like to keep private are the scenes of a lab technician dissecting a baby’s body parts in a pie dish. They would prefer you not hear the laughter of a Planned Parenthood medical assistant as she exclaims that the tissue they are looking at gets “five stars.” (That can be heard and seen at 9:48 in the third video.)

They would prefer you not hear the comments made by a Planned Parenthood doctor in the video, who, when discussing the costs of individual fetal organs and tissue, says, “I think a per item fee works a little better, just so we can see how much we can get out of it.” (That can be viewed at 10:41 in the video.)

They also don’t want people to see the documents from a biomedical company that some Planned Parenthood affiliates have partnered with that advertises the “financial profits” that can be gained by working with them and that expressly states they “fiscally reward []clinics.” (You can see these documents at 1:38 in the video and hear them being discussed at 3:09.)

They are hoping you won’t see the Planned Parenthood doctor from an earlier video featured here again, haggling over the price for fetal body parts as she jokes, “I want a Lamborghini.” (That little gem can be found at 5:45 in thevideo.)

And they certainly don’t want people to see the tiny little arm, the hand and five fingers of a dismembered almost 12-week-old unborn baby in the pie dish. (It is hard to view, but you can do so at 10:22 in the video.)

So, yes, Planned Parenthood is concerned about privacy. Its own.

I thought news organizations wanted to expose cover-ups. Usually, when there is even a hint of scandal, reporters are knocking down the door to get answers. But apparently they are a little less interested in investigative journalism that could bring down one of the sacred cows of the left.

And if the media blackout wasn’t enough, now a California court has issued atemporary restraining order to prevent any more videos featuring employees of the lab seen in this third video from being released to the public.

You know what that means—Planned Parenthood and the lab clinics it has been teaming up with are fearful of further exposure of their supposedly legal activities. And that’s the crux of the matter—if they have nothing to hide, what’s the big deal?

Thankfully, the mainstream media is not what it used to be, and we the people have tools we didn’t use to have. No fat-cat PR firm is going to intimidate me from sharing this story and these videos with friends and neighbors. I hope you’ll do the same.

]]>An illegal immigrant accused of attempted rape and murder during a violent crime spree Monday was released by Ohio sheriff’s deputies three weeks ago after U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents told the officers not to detain him.

Juan Emmanuel Razo-Ramirez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, was arrested after a shootout with police in Lake County, Ohio, that capped off a string of crimes beginning with an attempt to rape his niece, a 14-year-old girl. He then shot a woman in the arm and later murdered a 60-year-old woman in her home.

Lake County sheriff’s deputies questioned Razo-Ramirez July 7 after they found him “acting suspiciously” by a residential area where he told officers he was in the U.S. illegally, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The deputies contacted Border Patrol agents, but the officials decided not to take Razo-Ramirez into custody.

“During that interview, Razo was uncooperative and the agents were unable to determine his immigration status. Without such a determination, the agents had no legal basis to file a detainer to hold the subject,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.

“Although the agents offered to meet with the deputies on site and interview the subject in person, the offer was declined and the subject was released.”

Lake County Sheriff Daniel Dunlap said Razo-Ramirez did not have a prior criminal record, and though he previously admitted he was in the U.S. illegally, he denied the charge when speaking to Homeland Security officials.

Dunlap said because of this they decided to release him rather than waiting for immigration officials to question him in person.

“I have somebody who we don’t know who he is, why he is in this country, why he is here illegally and why he allegedly committed a murder,” Painesville Municipal Court Judge Michael Cicconetti said during Tuesday’s arraignment. “He’s here illegally? And they didn’t take him? … I can’t set a bond high enough.”

The judge set his bond at $10 million. Razo-Ramirez pleaded not guilty to attempted murder, and more charges will likely be filed, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Department of Homeland Security said it would pursue deportation after the trial.

The case comes nearly a month after an undocumented immigrant fatally shot 32-year-old Kate Steinle while she was walking with her father on a public pier in San Francisco.

Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, the man charged with Steinle’s murder, is a seven-time felon who was deported to Mexico five separate times. He was released from a San Francisco jail in April under “sanctuary city” protections barring the jail’s deputies from notifying U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement of his release, despite the agency’s prior request.

The case pushed sanctuary cities into national prominence, reigniting a contentious immigration debate on Capitol Hill.

]]>A California court issued a temporary restraining order Wednesday prohibiting the group behind the covert Planned Parenthood videos from releasing any footage involving top officials from StemExpress, a company that supplies fetal tissue to researchers.

The Los Angeles Superior Court order bans the Center for Medical Progress from releasing video taken at a restaurant in May with three StemExpress officials. This is the first legal response to the videos since the beginning of their release earlier this month, the Associated Press reports.

“The legitimacy of the complaints being made by StemExpress are very questionable as is the state judge issuing a temporary restraining order because the precedent of First Amendment rights frowns on prior restraints,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

The group has released four undercover videos alleging to show Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted fetal tissue for medical research. The latest video was released Thursday morning after the court order.

It shows graphic footage of aborted fetuses inside a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic. At one point, the medical director of the clinic discusses how the group retains legal protections by discussing fetal tissue contracts in a “research vein” rather than as a “business venture.”

David Daleiden, leader of the Center for Medical Progress, said in a statement that StemExpress was using “meritless litigation” to cover up an “illegal baby parts trade” and “suppress free speech.”

“The Center for Medical Progress follows all applicable laws in the course of our investigative journalism work,” he said.

Planned Parenthood provides fetal tissue to StemExpress, which is based in California and supplies human blood, tissue and other clinical specimens to biomedical researchers.

A StemExpress spokesman told the Associated Press the company is “grateful its rights have been vindicated in a court of law.”

Under U.S. law, it is illegal to sell fetal tissue for profit, but donations for scientific research are permitted.

Planned Parenthood has denied misconduct, maintaining that the videos misrepresent the group’s participation in tissue research programs and that it does not make a profit off the donations.

The Senate will vote next week on a Republican-led bill that would block federal funds to Planned Parenthood following the release of the covert videos.

]]>Late Wednesday, the Los Angeles Superior Court issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) banning the Center for Medical Progress from releasing video of a meeting with three StemExpress employees at a restaurant last May, potentially violating fundamental First Amendment precedents that bar prior restraints on speech.

The Center for Medical Progress (CMP), a group of “citizen journalists dedicated to monitoring and reporting on medical ethics and advances,” has released four undercover videos exposing Planned Parenthood’s program of selling aborted babies’ body parts—and they promise that more videos are on the way. According to the Associated Press, StemExpress is a “Placerville-based company started in 2010 that provides human tissue, blood and other specimens to researchers.” Planned Parenthood is one of StemExpress’s main suppliers.

StemExpress’ Case

In one of the videos already released, Holly O’Donnell, a former StemExpress employee, said, “We were asked to procure certain tissues like brain, livers, thymus, pancreas, heart, lungs and pretty much anything on the fetus. It’s basically a huge trafficking of fetal tissues … StemExpress is a company that hires procurement techs to draw blood and dissect dead fetuses and sell the parts to researchers.”

It is clear from the video that O’Donnell was not filmed undercover—she voluntarily related her experiences because of how terrible she felt about what she had done. “I could feel death and pain shoot up my body,” O’Donnell said about seeing and touching the aborted baby parts.

No one can credibly argue that these videos are not news or that the First Amendment does not apply to the vital and important work that CMP is doing to expose potentially illegal and certainly sickening behavior by Planned Parenthood and StemExpress.

Clearly concerned about what other horrendous details may come out in the yet to be released videos, StemExpress filed a complaint this week alleging receipt of stolen property as well as a number of other claims.

Its main claim is invasion of privacy under California Penal Code § 632(a), which prohibits “intentionally and without the consent of all parties … record[ing] [a] confidential communication.” A confidential communication is defined as a communication made:

… in circumstances as may reasonably indicate that any party … desires it to be confined to the parties thereto, but excludes a communication made in … any other circumstance in which the parties … may reasonably expect that the communication may be overheard.

One of the undercover videos that StemExpress has temporarily stopped from being publicly released is one in May in which StemExpress executives Catherine Dyer, Megan Barr and Kevin Cooksy met with CMP at a restaurant in El Dorado Hills, Calif.

That poses quite a problem for StemExpress and throws doubt onto the legitimacy of its legal claim and the court’s granting of a temporary restraining order. It is unreasonable to expect that communications made in a public restaurant will not be overheard, which would put CMP squarely within the exception in §632(a).

In fact, the Los Angeles-based appeals court confirmed this in Wilkins v. National Broadcasting Company (1999) when it ruled in favor of undercover reporters from NBC’s Dateline who pretended to be potential investors in a company that sold “toll-free” 800 phone lines that fraudulently billed people for the services.

The reporters videotaped a lunch meeting with company executives, and the court concluded that the executives had “no objective expectation of privacy in their business lunch meeting” or that the conversation “would not be divulged to anyone else.”

StemExpress obviously realized that this was a problem because its lawyers, McDermott Will & Emery, say in the complaint that StemExpress chose this restaurant “because of the private nature of its seating.” That is a pretty weak way of trying to get around this statutory exemption, although it apparently worked with the state judge in this case.

Undercover Videos and Censorship

StemExpress also claims that the videos that have been released were “purposely edited in a way to paint the doctors in a negative and factually-misleading light,” subjecting the company to harassment and harming its business. Of course, the problem with this claim is that in each case, CMP has also released the full, unedited video.

The temporary restraining order issued by Judge Joanne B. O’Donnell is limited, enjoining CMP from releasing the video from last May. The court rejected StemExpress’ demand that CMP take down documents the group received from StemExpress including a supply agreement and price list for “fetal liver and material blood specimens.” The order will be in place until August 19, when the court holds a hearing on the matter.

Whether or not StemExpress succeeds on the merits of its claims against CMP for invasion of privacy, the appropriate remedy is not the suppression of speech. What CMP has done is not at all different from the undercover videos that other media sources like CBS’ “60 Minutes” are famous for.

Prior restraint—censorship of speech by the government—is one of the chief harms the First Amendment was meant to prevent. As the influential English legal scholar William Blackstone wrote:

The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state; but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications… Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public; to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press…

The Supreme Court and Free Speech

The Supreme Court has routinely ruled against attempts to censor free speech. The Court noted in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart (1931) that such prior restraints are the “most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights.”

In that case, a trial judge barred the local papers from reporting on certain aspects of a murder trial to ensure the defendant received a fair trial, but the Supreme Court reversed, writing that “a whole community cannot be restrained from discussing a subject intimately affecting life within it.”

In Near v. Minnesota, the Court overturned a state nuisance law allowing for the suppression of newspapers that published “malicious, scandalous, or defamatory” material, noting that a free press is “especially cherished for the immunity it afforded from prior restraint.” The fact that these videos are proving to be “scandalous” for Planned Parenthood and StemExpress is not a valid reason to restrain their publication.

In New York Times v. United States (1971), the Court ruled in favor of the New York Times in its bid to publish the classified (and stolen) Pentagon Papers and determined that civil or criminal proceedings after the fact would be the appropriate sanction for any misdeeds, rather than prior restraints on speech and publication.

In a concurring opinion, Justice William O. Douglass wrote, “These disclosures may have a serious impact. But that is no basis for sanctioning a previous restraint on the press.” Another concurring opinion written by Justice Hugo Black observes, “Both the history and the language of the First Amendment support the view that the press must be free to publish news, whatever the source.”

Privacy Claims vs. First Amendment

Further, parties like StemExpress asserting privacy claims in order to prevent publication of unfavorable information generally have not fared well in court.

For example, in CBS Inc. v. Davis (1994), Justice Harry Blackmun stayed an injunction that would have stopped CBS’ “48 Hours” from broadcasting surreptitiously recorded footage of a South Dakota meat-packing company’s unsanitary facilities, finding that “indefinite delay of the broadcast will cause irreparable harm to the news media that is intolerable under the First Amendment.” He wrote that while the “prohibition against prior restraints is by no means absolute, the gagging of publication has been considered acceptable only in ‘exceptional cases.’”

Further, Blackmun pointed out that even “where questions of allegedly urgent national security…or competing constitutional interests…are concerned,” prior restraint is appropriate only when “the evil that would result from the reportage is both great and certain and cannot be mitigated by less intrusive measures.”

Thus, StemExpress’ desire to avoid further ridicule, criticism or scandal for its nefarious involvement in the gruesome harvesting and sale of aborted babies’ body parts does not outweigh the public interest in seeing these videos. No one can credibly argue that these videos are not news or that the First Amendment does not apply to the vital and important work that CMP is doing to expose potentially illegal and certainly sickening behavior by Planned Parenthood and StemExpress.

Though the California court halted the Center for Medical Progress from releasing videos from the meeting in May for now, this won’t (and shouldn’t) be the last word.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/a-california-judge-needs-a-lesson-in-the-first-amendment/feed/0Lila Rose: Undercover Videos Prove ‘What Has Been Happening Now for Decades’http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/lila-rose-undercover-videos-prove-what-has-been-happening-now-for-decades/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/lila-rose-undercover-videos-prove-what-has-been-happening-now-for-decades/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 18:44:59 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194407Lila Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, a pro-life group, knows firsthand what it is like to film Planned Parenthood employees undercover. Live... Read More

]]>Lila Rose, the founder and president of Live Action, a pro-life group, knows firsthand what it is like to film Planned Parenthood employees undercover.

Live Action has released many undercover videos of Planned Parenthood staffers, including a video of clinic staff giving X-rated advice to underage girls.

In an interview with The Daily Signal, Rose said the Center for Medical Progress’ videos showing senior executives at Planned Parenthood discussing the sale of fetal organs “proves what has been happening now for decades.”

“They are engaged in the sale and profiteering of baby body parts,” Rose said.

Planned Parenthood has denied claims that they profit from their “tissue donation” program. Spokespersons for the organization have repeatedly called the videos “heavily edited.”

“They’re going to continue to say it because it is their only defense,” Rose said.

She said the full videos, also released by the Center for Medical Progress, are just as disturbing.

Rose believes that Planned Parenthood should be investigated and “immediately defunded.”

She also criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., for blocking an amendment to the highway bill which would have defunded Planned Parenthood.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/lila-rose-undercover-videos-prove-what-has-been-happening-now-for-decades/feed/0In Fourth Video, Planned Parenthood Executive Says ‘We Don’t Want to Get Called on Selling Fetal Parts Across States’http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/fourth-video-shows-planned-parenthood-executive-describing-the-sale-of-fetal-organs/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/fourth-video-shows-planned-parenthood-executive-describing-the-sale-of-fetal-organs/#commentsThu, 30 Jul 2015 16:44:31 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194396Another undercover video of a Planned Parenthood executive describing the sale of fetal organs has been released by the Center for Medical Progress. The video... Read More

]]>Another undercover video of a Planned Parenthood executive describing the sale of fetal organs has been released by the Center for Medical Progress.

The video shows a conversation between actors portraying buyers from a human biologics company and Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains Vice President and Medical Director Dr. Savita Ginde.

>>> Viewers should be aware that the video above is graphic and shows the dissection of aborted fetal body parts.

Ginde also appeared in the video the Center for Medical Progress released on Tuesday.

During her conversation with the actors, Ginde said that “putting it under ‘research’ gives us a little bit of an overhang over the whole thing.”

“In public I think it makes a lot more sense for it to be in the research vein than, I’d say, business venture.”

Ginde added that she wants all the Planned Parenthood affiliates to be “making the same decision.”

Ginde was aware of the potential legal ramifications of the arrangement.

“If you have someone in a really anti [abortion] state who’s going to be doing this for you, they’re probably going to get caught.”

Ginde said that Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains’ lawyer, Kevin Paul, has “got it figured out.”

“He knows that even if, because we talked to him in the beginning, you know, we were like, ‘We don’t want to get called on,’ you know, ‘selling fetal parts across states.’”

“And you feel confident that they’re building those layers?” the buyers asked.

“I’m confident that our legal [department] will make sure we’re not put in that situation,” Ginde said.

The buyers were then taken into the clinic’s pathological laboratory to observe the “quality” of the “specimens” available.

As the buyers observe the dissection of an aborted fetus, Ginde says, “It’s a baby.”

After the dissection, Ginde implied that Planned Parenthood is profiting from the sale of the organs.

“I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it,” Ginde said.

In a statement, the Center for Medical Progress’ David Daleiden said:

Elected officials need to listen to the public outcry for an immediate moratorium on Planned Parenthood’s taxpayer funding while the 10 state investigations and three congressional committees determine the full extent of Planned Parenthood’s sale of baby parts.

Planned Parenthood’s recent call for the NIH [National Institutes of Health] to convene an expert panel to ‘study’ fetal experimentation is absurd after suggestions from Planned Parenthood’s Dr. Ginde that ‘research’ can be used as a catch-all to cover-up baby parts sales. The biggest problem is bad actors like Planned Parenthood who hold themselves above the law in order to harvest and make money off of aborted fetal brains, hearts and livers.

On Sunday, Planned Parenthood President and CEO Cecile Richards said in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” that Planned Parenthood does not profit from the sale of fetal tissue.

She said the “highly edited videos, sensationalized videos,” were put forth by a “militant” group “to try to impugn and smear the name of Planned Parenthood.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/30/fourth-video-shows-planned-parenthood-executive-describing-the-sale-of-fetal-organs/feed/0Speaking Out: The Voices of the Growing Pro-Life Movement at the #WomenBetrayed Rallyhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/speaking-out-the-voices-of-the-growing-pro-life-movement-at-the-womenbetrayed-rally/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/speaking-out-the-voices-of-the-growing-pro-life-movement-at-the-womenbetrayed-rally/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 22:01:34 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194275According to Planned Parenthood’s website, most women “ultimately feel relief” after having an abortion. In fact, the website asserts that sustained “emotional problems” after an... Read More

]]>According to Planned Parenthood’s website, most women “ultimately feel relief” after having an abortion. In fact, the website asserts that sustained “emotional problems” after an abortion are not typical—just like when a woman has a baby.

“I’m here to refute those words,” said Andrea Pearson, regional coordinator from the pro-life organization Silent No More.

Carrying a sign reading, “I Regret My Abortion,” Pearson shared her story at a #WomenBetrayed rally outside the Capitol on Tuesday, along with other speakers in the pro-life movement.

When Pearson was 18 years old, she became pregnant. After going to Planned Parenthood, Pearson said she left the clinic feeling as if there were no alternative options.

She wasn’t counseled. She wasn’t told of the consequences ahead. She just made an appointment and left the clinic.

When Pearson went to Planned Parenthood for the procedure, she justified the abortion by arguing that it was legal. But once she left the clinic, Pearson said she felt shame and was overcome with depression.

“In the days and months following my abortion, I would relive that procedure. I would vividly remember, and still do, the sounds of the suction, the physical pain, the coldness of the room and the other women’s vacant stares,” Pearson said. “The full impact of my decision and its consequences were starting to evolve.”

Although Pearson had two more abortions following her first, she since has become an advocate in the pro-life movement.

And that pro-life movement is growing.

As a third video from the Center for Medical Progress was released Tuesday, Pearson joined others at the #WomenBetrayed rally, organized by Students for Life of America, to discuss the misdemeanors of Planned Parenthood and why the 501(c)(3) should be defunded.

According to Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., Planned Parenthood exploits women and their babies, as evidenced in the recent videos.

“Take a look at those body parts in the petri dish. Take a look at them,” Harris said. “You can identify what parts they are if you took a biology course. Those are human parts.”

“Women are betrayed in Planned Parenthood clinics,” Harris continued. “The war on women is occurring in Planned Parenthood clinics every day.”

In 2013 alone, Planned Parenthood performed 327,653 abortions, and 94 percent of its pregnancy services were abortions. In just three years, from 2011-2013, almost 1 million abortions were performed by Planned Parenthood.

Furthermore, according to Planned Parenthood’s 2013-2014 annual report, 41 percent of Planned Parenthood’s total revenue is derived from taxpayer funding.

Dr. Ben Carson and Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the words of the Declaration of Independence remain intact today and that Americans should question whether Planned Parenthood is supporting their values.

“There can be no liberty and pursuit of happiness if there is no life,” Carson said. “Why don’t they [Planned Parenthood] spend their time trying to save human life?”

“I would encourage every American to watch these videos,” Cruz said. “There is no ambiguity in what we’re seeing.”

Additionally, the Family Research Council’s Arina Grossu said the videos expose the truth of Planned Parenthood’s actions as baby trafficking.

“Planned Parenthood has now been caught red-handed in baby organ trafficking, endangering women by changing abortion methods to procure intact organs, possibly violating the partial-birth abortion ban,” Grossu said. “Why are we funding such a depraved organization with our hard-earned taxpayer money? This must stop. Enough is enough.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/speaking-out-the-voices-of-the-growing-pro-life-movement-at-the-womenbetrayed-rally/feed/0Why the Media Should Ignore Planned Parenthood’s Advice and Report on Undercover Videoshttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/why-the-media-should-ignore-planned-parenthoods-advice-and-report-on-undercover-videos/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/why-the-media-should-ignore-planned-parenthoods-advice-and-report-on-undercover-videos/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 21:59:33 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194291In the case of the unfolding scandal involving the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, much of the mainstream media have fallen for the old... Read More

The group circulated a memo to reporters and producers late Monday that discouraged them from airing the undercover videos, arguing that they were obtained under false identification and violated patient privacy.

Those patients’ privacy should not be further violated by having this footage shared by the media,’ the memo reads.

Here’s the problem: as anyone who has watched the third video knows, there are no patients shown in the video.

No, what Planned Parenthood would presumably like to keep private are the scenes of a lab technician dissecting a baby’s body parts in a pie dish. They would prefer you not hear the laughter of a Planned Parenthood medical assistant as she exclaims that the tissue they are looking at gets “five stars.” (That can be heard and seen at 9:48 in the third video.)

They would prefer you not hear the comments made by a Planned Parenthood doctor in the video, who, when discussing the costs of individual fetal organs and tissue, says, “I think a per item fee works a little better, just so we can see how much we can get out of it.” (That can be viewed at 10:41 in the video.)

They also don’t want people to see the documents from a biomedical company that some Planned Parenthood affiliates have partnered with that advertises the “financial profits” that can be gained by working with them and that expressly states they “fiscally reward[] clinics.” (You can see these documents at 1:38 in the video and hear them being discussed at 3:09.)

They are hoping you won’t see the Planned Parenthood doctor from an earlier video featured here again, haggling over the price for fetal body parts as she jokes, “I want a Lamborghini.” (That little gem can be found at 5:45 in the video.)

And they certainly don’t want people to see the tiny little arm, the hand and five fingers of a dismembered almost 12-week-old unborn baby in the pie dish. (It is hard to view, but you can do so at 10:22 in the video.)

So, yes, Planned Parenthood is concerned about privacy. Its own.

I thought news organizations wanted to expose cover-ups. Usually, when there is even a hint of scandal, reporters are knocking down the door to get answers. But apparently they are a little less interested in investigative journalism that could bring down one of the sacred cows of the left.

And if the media blackout wasn’t enough, now a California court has issued a temporary restraining order to prevent any more videos featuring employees of the lab seen in this third video from being released to the public.

You know what that means—Planned Parenthood and the lab clinics it has been teaming up with are fearful of further exposure of their supposedly legal activities. And that’s the crux of the matter—if they have nothing to hide, what’s the big deal?

Thankfully, the mainstream media is not what it used to be, and we the people have tools we didn’t use to have. No fat-cat PR firm is going to intimidate me from sharing this story and these videos with friends and neighbors. I hope you’ll do the same.

This commentary was updated to include news about the temporary restraining order on future videos.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/why-the-media-should-ignore-planned-parenthoods-advice-and-report-on-undercover-videos/feed/015 Beautiful Stories Behind the Trend #UnplannedParenthoodhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/15-beautiful-stories-behind-the-trend-unplannedparenthood/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/15-beautiful-stories-behind-the-trend-unplannedparenthood/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 21:42:42 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194200Pro-life supporters took to Twitter on Wednesday to reveal their personal stories regarding adoption, pregnancy and choosing life. Playing off of the name “Planned Parenthood,”... Read More

]]>Pro-life supporters took to Twitter on Wednesday to reveal their personal stories regarding adoption, pregnancy and choosing life.

Playing off of the name “Planned Parenthood,” the social media hashtag #UnplannedParenthood is filled with many people sharing their stories of deciding against abortion, even in the midst of difficult times, and celebrating that decision years later.

I was 22. She was 19. Neither of us ready to be parents. But we got ready. Fast. And got Blessed. Abundantly. #UnplannedParenthood

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/15-beautiful-stories-behind-the-trend-unplannedparenthood/feed/0How Rich Corporate Elites Are Lobbying Lawmakers to Crush Marriage Advocateshttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/how-rich-corporate-elites-are-lobbying-lawmakers-to-crush-marriage-advocates/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/how-rich-corporate-elites-are-lobbying-lawmakers-to-crush-marriage-advocates/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 21:23:18 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194277What do you do when you can’t persuade the American people to embrace your values? You use government coercion to impose those values on people.... Read More

]]>What do you do when you can’t persuade the American people to embrace your values?

You use government coercion to impose those values on people. And you get rich corporate elites to lobby government on your behalf.

That’s what’s taking place right now in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage.

Last week, Democrats in both houses of Congress introduced a bill they call the “Equality Act.” This bill adds the phrase “sexual orientation and gender identity” to more or less every federal law that has protections on the basis of race.

If the bill ever became law, the government would treat ordinary Americans who believe we are created male and female, and that male and female are created for each other in marriage, as if they were racists.

The Human Rights Campaign, the LGBT activist group behind the bill, has been trumpeting that “Corporate Giants Announce Support” for the bill. That’s right: “corporate giants” want the federal government to coerce and penalize mom-and-pop flower shops because they have a different set of cultural values.

The basic idea is that LGBT activists couldn’t persuade a majority of citizens to vote to redefine marriage, so they got five unelected judges to redefine marriage for the entire country. Now, they’re using corporate giants to pressure lawmakers in D.C. to enact legislation that would eliminate any dissent.

A leader in LGBT grant-making has told business leaders that he wants to shut down the political fight for religious freedom exemptions in the U.S. within three years.

And these words are not empty rhetoric. A CNA investigation has found that millions of dollars have been poured into efforts to combat religious freedom exemptions in the United States.

Again we see business leaders who want the freedom to run their businesses in accordance with their values using the force of government to prevent other Americans from running their businesses, and schools, and charities in accordance with their values.

Indeed, the CNA report shows that one LGBT group gave over $275,000 to defeat religious liberty protections in Oregon.

Whatever you think about gay marriage, and regardless of whether you’d bake a gay wedding cake or not, all Americans should agree that the government should not be coercing bakers into violating their beliefs and fining them if they refuse.

The result is the overreach of progressive government and the administrative state, the sexual revolution’s elevation of desire over reason and the whittling of religious free exercise down to the freedom to worship. We need to counter all of these developments. Policy organizations, religious and civic organizations and legal organizations will have to play their roles in empowering the citizenry to reclaim their government and culture.

Without a return to the principles of the American Founding—ordered liberty based on faith and reason, natural rights and morality, limited government and civil society—Americans will continue to face serious and perplexing challenges. The dilemmas faced by bakers and florists and charities and schools are only the beginning.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/how-rich-corporate-elites-are-lobbying-lawmakers-to-crush-marriage-advocates/feed/0Young Couple Creates Video Tribute for Baby Who Passed in Wombhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/young-couple-finds-comfort-in-faith-after-losing-baby/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/young-couple-finds-comfort-in-faith-after-losing-baby/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 21:18:47 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194243When Billy Jack and Sara Brawner found out they were pregnant in November 2013, they were overjoyed. Having previously endured a miscarriage, they found every... Read More

When Billy Jack and Sara Brawner found out they were pregnant in November 2013, they were overjoyed.

Having previously endured a miscarriage, they found every moment of their pregnancy to be nothing short of a miracle.

Then, last summer, when Sara was 34 weeks pregnant with a little girl to be named Willa Rose, the unthinkable happened: the baby’s heart stopped beating.

“It was a Thursday, I remember,” Sara says in a newly released video that documents the couple’s loss. “I felt her kick around 9 or 10 in the morning, and I didn’t feel her kick for the rest of the day.”

The Brawners discovered that Willa Rose had passed, and Sara, who also goes by SK, delivered their daughter. They spent the seven hours they had with Willa Rose holding her, allowing friends and family to hold her, taking pictures and celebrating her short life.

A short while later, they hosted a funeral for Willa Rose.

“An unborn baby is a baby, and that is a life,” Sara says in the video produced by husband-and-wife cinematography duo The McKellars. “They have worth and value. Losing a child is so terrible and so hard.”

Sara and Billy Jack, or BJ, met at a small college in Colorado. After getting married and moving to Texas three years ago, they began dreaming of the family they would build.

When Sara found out she was expecting, they moved out of their downtown loft and began construction on a suburban home away from the city, nestled in the woods and filled with stylized flea market finds—designed and ready for the baby they hoped to bring home soon.

They had planned for Sara to stay home with the baby while BJ took up work building homes with his father.

While the death of Willa is a grief they never could have imagined, the Brawners have found hope and joy in their faith. Christians, they believe Willa has caused a “sweetness” and a “unity” to blossom in their marriage.

“You’d think it would be a really hard memory,” BJ says. “But it was all truly sweet. We loved those days.”

“[Sara] grieves Willa’s death with such grace,” BJ added in a photo posted to Instagram.

]]>Rep. Richard Hanna was the only Republican candidate in 2014 to accept funds from Planned Parenthood.

The third-term congressman from New York’s 22nd District—which runs from the Pennsylvania border to Lake Ontario—received $2,823 from Planned Parenthood during his last election.

The Daily Signal recently published a list of candidates who took funds from the embattled organization, which is facing federal and state investigations for its role in the alleged sale of aborted fetal body parts.

Hanna has voted against legislation that would have cut federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

“For me it’s a very personal thing,” Hanna said in a 2012 interview with Syracuse’s Post-Standard. “I think you’ve watched a number of things come up recently, like the proposal to defund Planned Parenthood. And I’ve gotten to feel that I owed it to my friends in the Republican Party to stand out a little bit and say, ‘Everybody doesn’t feel the way you feel.’”

Hanna has been praised by Planned Parenthood on several occasions. He even accepted an award from the organization in 2012.

According to Planned Parenthood, the organization presents its “prestigious” Barry Goldwater Award “to an outstanding elected official who has acted as a leader within the Republican Party to protect women’s reproductive rights across the United States.”

In a statement following Hanna’s GOP primary victory in 2014, Dawn Laguens, the executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said:

Richard Hanna’s victory shows that Republican voters will elect leaders who support women’s health. Allowing women to make their own personal health care decisions is at the heart of independence and freedom. That’s what Richard Hanna has made clear throughout his time in Congress and throughout his primary campaign against his extreme and out-of-touch opponent, Claudia Tenney.

He’s not alone. The majority of Americans—across party lines—agree that decisions about reproductive health care should be left between a woman and her doctor—without government intrusion.

The Daily Signal reached out to Hanna’s office to ask if he would join his Republican colleagues in calling for an investigation into Planned Parenthood in light of recently released undercover video showing senior executives at the organization discussing the sale of fetal organs. The Daily Signal also asked if Hanna would return the funds he received from Planned Parenthood pending the results of that investigation.

A spokeswoman for Hanna did not return our multiple requests for comment.

One of Hanna’s constituents forwarded an email he received from Hanna’s office in response to his concerns about Planned Parenthood:

As you know, recent videos have revealed the disturbing way that some Planned Parenthood officials discuss the details of their operations. The callous and ugly tone and detached emotional nature of the video has renewed discussion of the federal funding of this organization.

I personally oppose abortion, and I have consistently supported the Hyde Amendment, which prohibits federal funds from being used to pay for abortions. It is clear that the vast majority of American taxpayers do not want their money spent on abortions, and I agree. Additionally, it is vitally important that we ensure that all medical practices and procedures within the United States comport with the laws and morals that we, as a nation, stand for.

Should the House consider legislation related to Planned Parenthood, I will keep your comments and concerns in mind. While I am sure you may not agree with every vote I cast representing you, you will always know my rationale for the decisions I make on the House floor. I am committed to open government and transparency, which is why I post updates from Washington and explanations for final passage votes on each House bill on Facebook at www.facebook.com/reprichardhanna.

“I have been a consistent supporter of women’s rights and health care organizations in upstate New York that aid women, especially those most vulnerable in our community. While I personally oppose abortion, individuals should be free to make that very difficult and personal decision without heavy-handed government involvement,” Hanna said in a Jan. 22 statement.

“This legislation goes beyond the Hyde Amendment to create new financial penalties, red tape and paperwork requirements,” he said. “These are government barriers for small businesses and individuals who would choose to provide their employees or themselves with health plans that include abortion coverage.”

“I continue to oppose spending federal tax dollars on abortion, but this legislation goes too far in finding new ways to insert government influence into personal and employer health care decisions best left to families and consumers,” Hanna added.

The House passed the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act in January in a 272-179 vote.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/the-republican-congressman-applauded-by-planned-parenthood/feed/17 Women and Men Share Why They Oppose Planned Parenthoodhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/7-women-and-men-share-why-they-oppose-planned-parenthood/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/7-women-and-men-share-why-they-oppose-planned-parenthood/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 17:58:38 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194024There is more to a movement than the slogan. Students for Life of America held a nationwide rally Tuesday that included 65 cities across the... Read More

Students for Life of America held a nationwide rally Tuesday that included 65 cities across the country filled with supporters with the desire to investigate and defund Planned Parenthood.

(Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

“Women have been betrayed by Planned Parenthood. Tiny humans have become commodities as a part of Planned Parenthood’s business model,” the #WomenBetrayed Facebook event page reads.

People from all ages and walks of life came to offer their support and share their personal stories on why this movement is especially important to them.

Supporters at the rally yelled several chants, including “We are the pro-life generation.” (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

Here are their stories.

Lisa Twig considers herself a dedicated pro-life feminist. She has been to 13 consecutive March for Life demonstrations.

“I’ve been told, ‘You can’t be a feminist because you are against abortion’ and I’m like when did abortion become a qualifier for being a feminist? Why should I have to support a violent choice in order to stand up for women’s rights?” Twig told The Daily Signal.

Twig wants to be an advocate of all human rights and not be wrongly labeled by her feminist views.

“I see them as equally important, both human beings and women,” Twig said. “[Abortion] is the greatest human rights injustice of our generation.”

Lisa Twig, 26, has been a part of the pro-life movement since she was 14 years old. “I see something wrong and I just decide I’ll make a sign about it, although this one was made by someone who has better handwriting than I do,” Twig said. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

For many pro-life supporters, the issue is personal. Faith Braverman is no different.

Braverman told The Daily Signal that her younger sister got pregnant at 17 years old, yet the option of an abortion never crossed her mind.

“She knew right from the start she wanted to keep her baby and now she has a wonderful life, her kid is beautiful, she is married, she is studying to be a nurse,” Braverman said. “It’s just more proof to me a baby isn’t a death sentence for whatever you want to achieve in life.”

Helping her sister through this time in her life, Braverman is able to understand what some women are dealing with and to emphasize how important a proper support system is to them.

“It’s all about having people around you, a good support system. That’s something we need to hammer home to women, that they aren’t alone, there are options.” Braverman said.

Braverman proudly displays her witty sign in front of the United States Capitol Building as she shares her advice for women dealing with the thought of an abortion. “There are happy endings out there for people who have unplanned pregnancies, I know a lot of women feel they don’t have the choice, but there always is one,” Braverman said. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

Mary Gorman can see the importance of the pro-life movement etched upon the faces of her daughters. As the mother of three little girls, Gorman stated that it is her job to allow them the option of life.

“A life is a life. Once you’re pregnant, your body is not your own anymore, you have another body, you have another heart, another brain, you have something else, another body entirely,” Gorman said.

The personal experience of going through multiple pregnancies and having her children has put the controversial topic in perspective for Gorman.

“I hope that someday in the near future people look back and say ‘I can’t believe we did that, I can’t believe how wrong we were,’” Gorman said.

Mary-Kate and Audrey Gorman stand with their handmade Dr. Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who!”-themed sign. “She liked it because it was about small people looking out for the tiny ones,” their mother, Mary said. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

Janet Shagan revealed that while she just recently got physically involved in the pro-life movement, she’s always been an advocate for the unborn.

“In this country, we are for every person. All through history it has been dangerous when some group is defined as less than human,” Shagan said. “In these times we are living in, it is the unborn that are defined as less than human, and there is something incredibly sad about that.”

Janet Shagan shows off her sign and speaks of her opinion on Planned Parenthood. “I don’t want to support it. It’s a big business. Why can’t they stand and fall on their own? Why do taxpayers have to give money to this?” Shagan said. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

Jim and Ellen Storey have a full household as the parents of six children.

They told The Daily Signal that although they had two children on their own, they decided to adopt four special needs children, who are typically lost in the system, as it is difficult to place them in a permanent home.

“Their mothers chose to have life for them. That’s the greatest gift a mother could ever give her child, is to say, ‘Here is life, but I’m not ready to raise you or maybe because of my situation right now, I can’t,’” Storey said.

A demonstrator’s sign alludes to the importance of life in reference to Planned Parenthood’s sale of fetal tissue, recently revealed in undercover videos. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

Ellen Storey revealed how grateful she is that their respective mothers decided to carry their pregnancies to term, rather than aborting the special needs children.

“I always want those mothers to know that they gave their child the one thing that no one else ever could: life,” Storey said.

The Storeys speak of their six children and how grateful they are to the women who gave their four children up for adoption, whom they are proud to raise as their own. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

One pro-life supporter declined to give his name but was willing to share his powerful story.

“My mother was brave enough to choose life when my father was pressuring her to have an abortion,” the pro-life supporter said. “It’s an issue that strikes home for me in more ways than one.”

The man uses his own life as a living example of why the pro-life movement is so important.

“Since I have been able to live and be so successful, I want that opportunity for everyone,” the anonymous supporter said.

A pro-life supporter displays his sign and the reason the issue is so important to him. “It’s a statement that unborn lives matter as we move forward towards defunding Planned Parenthood,” the man told The Daily Signal. (Photo: Samantha Reinis/The Daily Signal)

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/7-women-and-men-share-why-they-oppose-planned-parenthood/feed/0Do Families in Red or Blue States Have Greater Stability? What a Study Found.http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/sdo-families-in-red-or-blue-states-have-greater-stability/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/sdo-families-in-red-or-blue-states-have-greater-stability/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 15:57:57 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193792Contrary to what has been accepted as conventional wisdom, America’s red counties have a higher percentage of stable families than those in blue counties. According... Read More

]]>Contrary to what has been accepted as conventional wisdom, America’s red counties have a higher percentage of stable families than those in blue counties.

According to a study from the Institute for Family Studies, red counties tend to have more married adults, more children born within marriage and higher levels of children living with both biological parents than blue counties.

“The reddest counties have higher rates of family stability, which is surprising because red counties, especially in the South, tend to have higher divorce rates,” said W. Bradford Wilcox, senior fellow with the Institute for Family Studies and author of the study. “But what seems to be happening here is that non-marital childbearing has emerged as a bigger engine of family instability than divorce in America. And this brief indicates that non-marital childbearing is lower in redder counties.”

This finding contradicts previous research outlined in Naomi Cahn’s and June Carbone’s “Red Families v. Blue Families,” which concluded that “blue families” are stronger than “red families.”

“The most stable families, the homes with two parents to nurture their kids, are found in the liberal strongholds along the East and West Coasts,” National Public Radio’s Neal Conan said during an interview with Cahn and Carbone. “The red states, the heartland states, if you will, the states that tout family values or celebrate family values, there are religious and traditional [values there] that you [Cahn and Carbone] say increase the likelihood of having less stable families.”

Wilcox acknowledged in his report some of the most stable families do come from blue states, such as Massachusetts and Minnesota, and that, indeed, the most stable families exist in the most extreme red and blue states.

But Wilcox said the state-level data addresses only part of the equation because it does not explain the “connection between family stability and political culture” at the local level.

“At the local level, red counties typically enjoy somewhat stronger families than do blue counties on at least three measures worth considering: marriage, non-marital childbearing and family stability,” Wilcox wrote in the report.

“The bottom line: The marriage advantage in red America helps explain why children in red counties are somewhat more likely to enjoy stable families than are children in blue counties,” he added.

Wilcox acknowledged there was no “overwhelming advantage” here, but he said it does dissolve the notion that blue states produce greater family stability. He said blue states achieve this through education and delayed parenthood, but red states have marriage on their side contributing to family stability.

Likewise, Rachel Sheffield, policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation’s Institute for Family, Community and Opportunity, said marriage does play a critical role in family stability and helps children succeed. Furthermore, children born in married families are less likely to raise their children in poverty.

“We can’t overlook the important need to strengthen marriage, particularly in communities where marriage is struggling or has fallen apart,” Sheffield said. “Marriage benefits men, women, children and society as a whole. Leaders at every level should look for ways to build a healthy marriage culture so that as many children as possible have the gift of being raised by their married mother and father in a stable, healthy family.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/sdo-families-in-red-or-blue-states-have-greater-stability/feed/0Democratic Lawmaker: ‘Black Lives Matter’ Protesters Should Be in Front of Planned Parenthoodshttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/democratic-lawmaker-black-lives-matter-protesters-should-be-in-front-of-planned-parenthoods/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/democratic-lawmaker-black-lives-matter-protesters-should-be-in-front-of-planned-parenthoods/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 13:02:58 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194184Democrat Bill Patmon, a state representative in Ohio, has introduced a bill to end Ohio state funding to Planned Parenthood. “Five thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine abortions... Read More

]]>Democrat Bill Patmon, a state representative in Ohio, has introduced a bill to end Ohio state funding to Planned Parenthood.

“Five thousand, four hundred and ninety-nine abortions are in Cuyahoga County, which I happen to represent,” Patmon said in a speech Tuesday. “And 63 percent of them are black women, 63 percent of them are of a certain hue of their skin.”

“You hear a lot of demonstrations across the country now, about black lives matter,” Patmon added. “Well, they skipped one place. They should be in front of Planned Parenthood.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/democratic-lawmaker-black-lives-matter-protesters-should-be-in-front-of-planned-parenthoods/feed/0March of Dimes Admits 5 Local Chapters Donated to Planned Parenthoodhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/march-of-dimes-admits-5-local-chapters-have-donated-to-planned-parenthood/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/29/march-of-dimes-admits-5-local-chapters-have-donated-to-planned-parenthood/#commentsWed, 29 Jul 2015 07:01:54 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193969March of Dimes, an organization that seeks to end premature birth, is facing criticism from its supporters for donations local chapters made to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s... Read More

]]>March of Dimes, an organization that seeks to end premature birth, is facing criticism from its supporters for donations local chapters made to Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider.

The uproar began shortly after The Daily Signal published a list of 41 organizations that donate or have donated to Planned Parenthood through direct grants or matching employee gifts. Planned Parenthood featured the names of the groups on its website, but removed them after complaints from companies like Coca-Cola, Ford and Xerox Corp.

Because of its pregnancy-focused mission, March of Dimes supporters flooded the organization’s Facebook page with complaints. That prompted March of Dimes to post this message on July 22 at 9:22 p.m.:

To set the record straight, the March of Dimes does not have a relationship with Planned Parenthood. Additionally, the March of Dimes does not promote or fund abortion services, nor may foundation funds be used for directive counseling regarding abortion. Violation of this policy would be grounds for immediate cancellation of a grant or cooperative agreement. Since 2007, five local March of Dimes chapters have given local grants to Planned Parenthood exclusively for prenatal education. In these communities, these are the only such services available to improve the health of low-income women and reduce the risks of birth defects, low birthweight, and prematurity in their babies.

March of Dimes’ admission was met with a flurry of reaction on social media, with many users incredulous that an organization whose explicit purpose is to help bring pregnancies to term and encourage healthy moms and babies would fund the nation’s largest abortion provider.

A few local March of Dimes chapters have given local grants to Planned Parenthood exclusively for preconception, prenatal, and interconception education in areas of the country where prenatal care is sparse, non-existent or difficult to access. This allows women to get the care they need to help improve the health of both mom and baby. The March of Dimes is neutral on the subject of abortion. The March of Dimes does not encourage, fund, or support abortion services through national, state or community grants, nor may foundation funds be used for directive counseling regarding abortion. Violation of this policy would be grounds for immediate cancellation of a grant.

Commenters, however, have continued to voice their disappointment.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, questioned why local chapters were permitted to donate to Planned Parenthood.

“The March of Dimes, which is on the list, had its Facebook page overwhelmed by so many comments that they issued a response which claimed they had no relation to the abortion giant, but then admitted that five local chapters had indeed given money to Planned Parenthood,” Perkins said in a statement.

“I’m not sure that people will buy the line that shifts blame to its local affiliates,” Perkins added. “The national organization could easily require local chapters to adhere to a neutral policy on funding abortion groups.

“The March of Dimes should do some soul searching—if they truly are a group that ‘funds lifesaving research and programs and works to end premature birth, birth defects and infant mortality,’ then why allow local chapters to give money to an organization that sells the body parts of aborted babies?”

]]>Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday the Senate will vote on a bill to defund Planned Parenthood before lawmakers leave Capitol Hill next week for August recess.

Republican legislators have pushed heavily to strip federal funding from the group following the release of three undercover videos showing top Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of aborted fetal body parts for medical research.

“The leader is working with his members to address this horrific issue and intends to have a vote before we leave,” McConnell spokesman Michael Brumas said.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul, Ky.; James Lankford, Okla.; and Joni Ernst, Iowa, are working on legislation that would block federal funds from Planned Parenthood. The group receives more than $500 million annually in government grants. The money cannot be used for abortions except in specific cases involving rape and incest.

“Good luck with that,” Reid said. “We’re dealing with the health of American women, and they’re dealing with some right-wing crazy.”

The GOP will need 60 votes to defund the group, and there are 54 Republicans in the Senate.

The House looks unlikely to push a vote to the floor before its August recess beginning later this week.

Rep. Jim Bridenstine, R-Okla., announced legislation Tuesday afternoon that would ban the federal government from entering into a contract with companies that donate to Planned Parenthood.

Bridenstine’s Legislative Director James Mazol said the bill was spurred by a Daily Signal investigation identifying 38 companies that donate directly to the group.

But a House Republican leadership aide told The Hill “the political reality” is that a move to block Planned Parenthood funding does not yet have enough support.

“In order to enact legislation to defund Planned Parenthood, we need more Republicans and Democrats in both the House and the Senate to support our efforts,” the aide said. “In order to get more support for our case, we have to investigate the organization and deliver the facts about their gruesome practices.”

President Obama said he would veto any attempts to defund the group.

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell defended the Planned Parenthood funding in a hearing before the House Tuesday, saying the grants provide preventative care for women including mammograms and cancer screenings. She has not yet watched the videos.

“There are statutes that guide the use of fetal tissue that are in place and should be enforced,” she told the House Education and Workforce Committee.

Burwell said HHS will defer an investigation into Planned Parenthood to the Department of Justice. The DOJ is currently investigating the Center for Medical Progress, the group that released the undercover videos, to determine whether the group obtained the footage legally.

Under federal law, it is illegal to sell fetal tissue for profit, but donations for research are permitted.

Planned Parenthood has denied misconduct, contending that the group legally donates fetal tissue for medical research and does not make a profit from the donations as the videos portray.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/28/senate-will-attempt-to-defund-planned-parenthood-before-recess/feed/0Anti-Planned Parenthood Protests Nationwide: ‘This Is Only the Beginning’http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/28/anti-planned-parenthood-protests-nationwide-this-is-only-the-beginning/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/28/anti-planned-parenthood-protests-nationwide-this-is-only-the-beginning/#commentsTue, 28 Jul 2015 23:53:15 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=194063CONCORD, N.H. – Protests against Planned Parenthood took place nationwide today in light of three undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress showing... Read More

]]>CONCORD, N.H. – Protests against Planned Parenthood took place nationwide today in light of three undercover videos released by the Center for Medical Progress showing senior Planned Parenthood executives discussing the sale of fetal organs.

The third video, released today, shows Planned Parenthood staffers dissecting the remains of an aborted fetus and discussing the sale of its organs.

Planned Parenthood has denied that its affiliates profit from their “tissue donation” program and has condemned the Center for Medical Progress for using “heavily edited” videos to take Planned Parenthood staffers’ words out of context.

The Center for Medical Progress has also released several videos of its full meetings with the executives.

Students for Life of America organized “Women Betrayed” rallies nationwide to protest taxpayer funding for the nation’s largest abortion provider.

Kristan Hawkins, the president of Students for Life of America, told The Daily Signal that “women across the nation rose up today to say that they deserve better than Planned Parenthood and abortion.”

“In Washington, D.C., alone, over 500 people—including Sens. Ted Cruz and Rand Paul, and Dr. Ben Carson—showed up in the blazing heat at the #WomenBetrayed rally to demand Planned Parenthood be defunded immediately and investigated for possible criminal actions. Photos and videos are pouring in to us at Students for Life of America and being posted on social media of the other 65 #WomenBetrayed rallies happening across the country,” Hawkins said.

“The response from the grassroots to defund Planned Parenthood has been truly astounding. But this is only the beginning. SFLA will be building upon these rallies next month, asking participants to visit their congressional representatives and demand they defund the abortion giant immediately. It is our hope that these #WomenBetrayed rallies and the videos from the Center for Medical Progress will mark the beginning of the end of Planned Parenthood and abortion in our nation. Women and their preborn children deserve better than abortion.”

In New Hampshire, protesters gathered on the grounds of the New Hampshire Statehouse to call for Planned Parenthood to be investigated and defunded.

During the rally, former New Hampshire House Speaker William O’Brien said that the average Granite State family has about $150 of its tax money go directly to Planned Parenthood.

“Are there not costs that go beyond taxpayer funds?” O’Brien asked. “Do we not pay with our souls?”

He said the taxpayer should not be complicit in funding illegal activity.

]]>A new documentary-style video was released today about Planned Parenthood’s alleged “black market” in harvesting and selling fetal body parts.

The 12-minute video, titled “Human Capital,” features a woman who says she worked for a company that procured tissue and organs for Planned Parenthood clinics describing what she considers the profit motive involved in the harvesting of aborted fetal body parts.

Viewers should be warned that the video is graphic. There are images of aborted fetal body parts.

“I thought I was going to be just drawing blood, not procuring tissue from aborted fetuses,” says Holly O’Donnell, who claims she fainted on her first day of work.

They [Planned Parenthood] get paid from it. They do get some kind of benefit.

Under federal law, it is illegal to profit off of the sale or purchase of human fetal tissue.

The video also features undercover footage of Dr. Savita Ginde, vice president and medical director of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains in Denver.

Standing in the Planned Parenthood abortion clinic pathology laboratory, where fetuses are brought after abortions, Ginde suggests that the clinic benefits in some way from harvesting these organs, stating that payment per organ “works a little better,” according to the video.

“I think a per-item thing works a little better, just because we can see how much we can get out of it,” she says.

The episode, produced by the Center for Medical Progress, follows two undercover videos depicting senior Planned Parenthood officials discussing the harvesting of organs from aborted fetuses.

Planned Parenthood has adamantly denied that the organization profits off tissue from aborted babies, and says the videos have been heavily edited to depict Planned Parenthood workers in the worst way possible.

The previous two videos triggered congressional investigations and calls to end taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood.

According to its annual report, Planned Parenthood received more than $500 million in taxpayer funding while performing 327,653 abortions, making it the nation’s largest abortion provider.

In the coming weeks, the Center for Medical Progress is expected to release more episodes as part of its “Human Capital” series.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/28/planned-parenthood-faces-allegations-from-former-clinic-worker-in-new-video/feed/2Study Finds an Increased Rate of Teenage Girls Use Morning-After Pillhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/study-finds-an-increased-rate-of-teenage-girls-use-morning-after-pill/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/study-finds-an-increased-rate-of-teenage-girls-use-morning-after-pill/#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 21:41:02 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193396An increased number of teenage girls—more than 20 percent—have used the morning-after pill, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and... Read More

]]>An increased number of teenage girls—more than 20 percent—have used the morning-after pill, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since 2002, the number of teenagers who have used the morning-after pill increased from 8 percent to 14 percent from 2006 to 2010. From 2011 to 2013, that number grew to 22 percent.

The morning-after pill is easily accessible since no prescription is required, and in 2013, the 18-year-old age limit required to purchase the pill was eliminated.

According to Bill Albert, chief program officer for The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, this study is indicative that “teens, like adults, often are not very good at contraception,” given the increased usage rates once the age limit was lifted.

Unlike regular birth control, the morning-after pill contains a higher dose of the female hormone progestin. As a result, if the drug is consumed within 72 hours of unprotected sex, chances of pregnancy are reduced by nearly 90 percent.

But despite these higher rates in emergency contraception, the study indicated a decline over the past 25 years of sexually active teens aged 15 to 19. Currently, about 45 percent of teens are sexually active, leveling out to a 14-percent decline in females and a 22-percent decline in males.

The 14th Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits the deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process of law, has been an avenue for protecting substantive rights since at least the early twentieth century. Alito said:

[T]he jurisprudential question is what limits the definition—how do we determine what liberty in the 14th Amendment means? Liberty means different things to different people. For libertarians, for classical liberals, it does include the protection of economic rights and property rights. For progressive social democrats, it includes the protection, a right to liberty means freedom from want.

Alito described what he sees as the current Supreme Court’s conception of liberty, as evidenced by the majority opinion in Obergefell, which was authored by Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The Court’s conception…is a very postmodern idea; it’s the freedom to define your understanding of the meaning of life. … It’s the right to self-expression. So if all of this is on the table now, where are the legal limits on it?

Alito pointed out that under this view, “liberty” is in the eye of the beholder: A libertarian Supreme Court justice might be willing to throw out minimum wage laws under the “liberty of contract” or zoning laws as violating property rights; a socialist justice might decide that “liberty” includes free college tuition and a guaranteed annual income.

Alito noted that, in earlier cases, the Court had attempted to place limits on what “liberty” protects.

Since “life” and “property” are relatively clear, “liberty” is where lawyers can get creative in pushing for new constitutional rights. In Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), the Court held that the 14th Amendment does not protect a “right to die” and states may ban assisted suicide.

Appealing to tradition, the Court noted that “for over 700 years, the Anglo-American common-law tradition has punished or otherwise disapproved of both suicide and assisting suicide.”

Alito pointed out that following Glucksberg, liberty “protect[ed] those rights that are deeply rooted in the traditions of the country.”

By contrast, the decision in Obergefell turned back attempts to limit substantive due process.

Alito said, “The Obergefell decision threw that out, did not claim that there was a strong tradition of protecting the right to same-sex marriage, this would have been impossible to find. So we are at, we are at sea, I think. I don’t know what the limits of substantive liberty protection under the 14th Amendment are at this point.”

He questioned the Court’s authority to rule this way:

If it’s not in the text of the Constitution or it’s not in something that is objectively, objectively ascertainable, if it’s just whatever I as an appointee of the Supreme Court happens to think is very important…it raises questions of legitimacy, it raises practical questions because the more the Court does this sort of thing, the more the process of nomination and confirmation will become like an election. It will become like a political process.

The Court is not simply another political branch, and the justices are not (and shouldn’t act like) politicians by another name. The decision in Obergefell raises a number of concerns about “liberty” and the Supreme Court as an institution. Justice Alito, like many conservatives, is rightly concerned about what sort of precedent Obergefell will set, and how it will affect controversial societal questions in the future.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/how-supreme-courts-understanding-of-liberty-in-gay-marriage-case-could-have-repercussions/feed/0Meet the 103-Year-Old World War II Vet Still Workinghttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/walmarts-oldest-employee-loren-wade-celebrates-103rd-birthday/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/walmarts-oldest-employee-loren-wade-celebrates-103rd-birthday/#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 18:58:50 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193823The Fountain of Youth may just be sitting in a Winfield, Kansas Walmart. It’s there that Loren Wade, a Walmart employee since 1983, celebrated his... Read More

]]>The Fountain of Youth may just be sitting in a Winfield, Kansas Walmart.

It’s there that Loren Wade, a Walmart employee since 1983, celebrated his 103rd birthday on Saturday. The Kansas native—who still puts in five-day, 30-hour work weeks—was joined by 200 of his closest family and friends for a daylong outdoor celebration.

The party included a congratulatory phone call from 92-year-old Bob Dole, who told Wade he may “catch [him] one of these days.” Wade’s son, now in his 80s, was also at the party.

“The company seems to like me and I appreciate it so much that they still let me work,” Wade told a local FOX affiliate in Winfield. “They are so good to me. It’s a great company.”

Wade is Walmart’s oldest employee in the States and, though they cannot confirm it, Walmart representatives say he may be their oldest employee worldwide.

Wade found his job at Walmart after retiring at age 70. He found retirement “pretty boring,” and he applied to work for the retail giant to help keep busy. Having taken his first job in Winfield at age 12, he has now been in the American workforce for more than 90 years.

Wade is a store “fixture,” according to locals, watering plants, greeting customers and running the cash register.

“I like to meet people and, being here, I get to talk to a lot of people,” Wade told TODAY’s Sheinelle Jones. “I like being occupied. I usually keep very busy, one thing or another. They see to it that I do.”

Wade is no stranger to hard work, having spent time in the Air Force during World War II. He was stationed for 43 months in India and China.

After World War II, Wade owned his own flooring business, where he laid carpet, sanded floors, and installed ceramic tile. He then held a couple of jobs with the United States Postal Service prior to retiring.

“You come to work and there is this role model that everyone is amazed by,” store manager Tonya Villar told KWCH-TV. “He works in lawn and garden, gives his all, he never misses work. He really is an inspiration to everyone.”

In honor of Wade’s birthday and service in World War II, Walmart is donating $125,000 to the Friends of the National World War II Memorial.

It’s not the first time he has been honored. In 2012, Experience Works, a job-training non-profit for older workers, awarded Wade with the title of “America’s Outstanding Oldest Worker.”

Wade credits his job at Walmart for keeping him active and healthy.

“I appreciate getting to be old and being recognized,” Wade told TODAY. “But like I say I’m still just a normal human being. I just happen to be lucky enough to still be around.”

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/walmarts-oldest-employee-loren-wade-celebrates-103rd-birthday/feed/0Study: 87% of Illegal Immigrants Won’t Be Deported Under Obama’s Executive Actionshttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/study-87-of-illegal-immigrants-wont-be-deported-under-obamas-executive-actions/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/study-87-of-illegal-immigrants-wont-be-deported-under-obamas-executive-actions/#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 17:00:54 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193799A new study has found that of the unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. already, most of them will be spared from deportation under Obama’s recent... Read More

]]>A new study has found that of the unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. already, most of them will be spared from deportation under Obama’s recent executive actions.

A report released last Thursday from the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think-tank in Washington, found that 13 percent of an estimated 11 million immigrants without papers—1.4 million people—have criminal records or recently crossed the border into the U.S. illegally.

Under the Obama administration’s new deportation guidelines, announced in November and put into effect July 1, these individuals will be a priority for deportation.

Consequently, according to Marc R. Rosenblum, author of the report and deputy director of the United States immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, refocusing enforcement policies on this select group “would effectively offer a degree of protection to the vast majority—87 percent—of unauthorized immigrants now residing in the United States.”

The report estimates that if Obama’s November 2014 enforcement policies are followed, there will be a reduction of deportations from within the U.S. by about 25,000 cases annually.

The 13 percent of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. who are now considered “enforcement priorities” has dropped from the 27 percent who were the focus of deportation efforts under the 2010-2011 policy guidelines.

Obama’s announcement of executive action on immigration in November of 2014 includes two key policy changes from which the results of the report come.

First, the Department of Homeland Security issued new policy guidance on which categories of unauthorized immigrants and other potentially removable noncitizens are priorities for enforcement.

The top deportation priorities, as outlined by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, include illegal immigrants who are national security threats, gang members, convicted felons and recent border crossers.

The second major change in the administration’s policies that the report addresses is the replacement of the Secure Communities information-sharing program with the new Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), which focuses on targeting individuals convicted of significant criminal offenses.

Homeland Security had to shut down the Secure Communities program after federal courts ruled that its requests to local police departments to detain immigrants were unconstitutional.

Republican lawmakers are not satisfied with the Priority Enforcement Program as its replacement, saying that it undermines agents’ ability to enforce immigration laws since it authorizes the transfer of individuals only in specific, limited circumstances.

If these new federal programs are carried out efficiently, Rosenblum said, “[i]mmigrants who have long been living in the U.S. and are not committing crimes will receive a degree of protection and likely will not be facing deportation.”

The report clarifies that removals at the U.S.-Mexico border remain a top priority under the 2014 guidelines. Rosenblum speculated that “falling interior removals may be offset to some extent by increases at the border.”

Meanwhile, another new study shows that the number of people emigrating from Mexico to the U.S.—both legally and illegally—has dropped sharply in recent years.

Demographers at the University of Texas-San Antonio and the University of New Hampshire found that the number of immigrants coming from Mexico peaked in 2003 and has fallen off by more than half since then.

There were 1.9 million people migrating from Mexico to the U.S. between 2003 and 2007, but only 819,000 did so from 2008 to 2012. According to U.S. Census figures that do not differentiate between legal and illegal immigration, this is a 57-percent drop in people coming to the U.S. from Mexico.

Rogelio Saenz, dean of the College of Public Policy at UTSA and lead author of the study, listed three explanations for the drop in immigration: there are fewer construction jobs in the U.S. due to the 2007-2009 recession, Mexico’s economy is growing and there is a falling birth rate.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/study-87-of-illegal-immigrants-wont-be-deported-under-obamas-executive-actions/feed/0What We Can Learn From Recent Trends in Teen Sexual Activityhttp://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/teen_sexual_activity_trends/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/teen_sexual_activity_trends/#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 16:28:28 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193463More teens are choosing to remain abstinent, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 1991, the percentage of... Read More

]]>More teens are choosing to remain abstinent, according to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Since 1991, the percentage of high school students overall who report that they have ever had sex, has dropped by roughly 15 percent. Valerie Huber, president of Ascend (formally known as the National Abstinence Education Association), discusses this trend in the The Heritage Foundation’s new 2015 Index of Culture and Opportunity.

Over the past decade, the sexualization of Amer­ica’s culture has continued unabated. It is now diffi­cult to listen to popular music or watch a movie that does not normalize casual sex in the most cavalier of ways. Cultural mores are often reflected in poli­cy priorities, and thus the normalization of teen sex is dominant within federally funded sex education programs throughout the nation.

Since 2010, almost $5 billion in federal funding has been spent for the so-called “comprehensive” sexual risk-reduction approach. This approach assumes that teens are—or soon will be—sexually active. Therefore, it places high priority on condom negotiation and contracep­tive use, rather than on delaying sexual activity.

But the question of whether or not a teen has sex is about a lot more than ideology. It has a direct impact on the physical, mental, relational, econom­ic and cultural health of America’s future. Many of today’s societal concerns can be traced back to the content and context of sexual decision-making.

A mounting body of research finds a high correlation between age of sexual initiation and a host of other life factors: academic achievement, relational and marital success, number of lifetime partners, preg­nancy, sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), emo­tional health, state of future family formation and the likelihood that an individual will live in pover­ty. Of course, each of these potential consequences affects not only the individual, but also the founda­tional health of society in general.

The trends of teen sex and related risk behaviors, then, have a much broader implication than might seem apparent at first. It may come as a surprise that since the Centers for Disease Control and Preven­tion started tracking high school sexual risk behav­iors in 1991, the percentage of students in grades nine to 12 choosing to wait to have sex increased by about 15 percent—an encouraging trend. Among ninth graders, initiation of sexual activity declined 23 percent during that same time; among high school seniors, it declined a less impressive but sig­nificant 4 percent.

Over the past 10 years, this statis­tic has remained relatively stable, with slight inflec­tions from year to year. Among students usually targeted for sex-education classes (15- to 17-year-olds), the most recent data report that 72 percent of boys and 73 percent of girls have never had sex, and the majority—58 percent of females and 53 percent of males—have had no sexual contact whatsoever.

However, not all the recent trends have been as positive. Over the past 10 years, the increase in delay of sexual activity among high school freshmen was nearly identical to the increase in sexual initiation among seniors—a troubling statistic that accentu­ates the need for regular reinforcement of sexual risk-avoidance skills and messages throughout the high school years.

In addition, STDs remain high­est among young adults (15-24), who represent only 27 percent of sexually active Americans but who carry 50 percent of all STDs. Earlier ages of sexual initiation and higher numbers of partners correlate directly with the risk of STD acquisition. Avoiding STDs is critical to the long-term health and fertility of individuals.

In addition, since 2010, some positive trends have stalled, and others have begun to move in a negative direction. The percentage of high schoolers who had sex with four or more partners decreased almost 15 percent from 1999 to 2009 but has increased by almost 9 percent since then. Also, despite the fact that current policy places a high value on teen contraceptive access and condom negotiation, the percentage of high school students who used no con­traception at all during their last sexual encounter increased slightly since 2009.

Teen birth rates have decreased 57 percent nationwide since 1991 without an increase in teen abortion rates. However, 89 percent of all teen births are non-marital, and non-marital birth increases the likelihood that both mother and child will have added challenges in their lives.

These indicators cannot be ignored because of their impact on youth and the health of families as they form. Census data confirm that one of the surest ways for youth to escape poverty is to graduate from high school, to learn skills to find employment and to have children after marriage. Called the success sequence because of the imperative of implement­ing each behavior in sequence, youth who follow this prescription experience only a 2-percent chance of living in poverty as adults. Persuading young peo­ple to focus on their education, future goals and opportunities—rather than on sexual activity—is vital to their successful transition from adolescence to adulthood.

]]>http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/teen_sexual_activity_trends/feed/0Kids Don’t Need Two Parents. They Need a Mom and Dad.http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/kids-dont-need-two-parents-they-need-a-mom-and-dad/
http://dailysignal.com/2015/07/27/kids-dont-need-two-parents-they-need-a-mom-and-dad/#commentsMon, 27 Jul 2015 15:51:44 +0000http://dailysignal.com/?p=193793Recently at Forbes, John Farrell published an odd critique of an essay of mine that ran at First Things. The essay is an excerpt from my... Read More

Farrell criticizes this for being too religious and for not being scientific enough: “[I]f there’s one thing the article doesn’t discuss at all, it’s … anthropology: The science of anthropology as it would be understood by practitioners of the wide-ranging discipline.” Farrell might want to reconsider his scientism. After all, philosophical and theological anthropology predate the practice of scientific anthropology by millennia. And, in fact, the most important anthropological truths—that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with inalienable rights—aren’t “scientific” at all.

Nevertheless, had Farrell looked to the book from which the First Things essay was drawn, he would have found ample scientific evidence to support the conclusion that marriage policy should reflect the truth that marriage is the union of man and woman. Part of that argument hinges on the reality that there is no such thing as “parenting.” There is mothering, and there is fathering, and children do best with both. This is an argument about human anthropology if ever there were.

Other disciplines provide insights, too. In a summary of the “best psychological, sociological, and biological research to date,” Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, finds that “men and women bring different gifts to the parenting enterprise, that children benefit from having parents with distinct parenting styles, and that family breakdown poses a serious threat to children and to the societies in which they live.”

Wilcox finds that “most fathers and mothers possess sex-specific talents related to parenting, and societies should organize parenting and work roles to take advantage of the way in which these talents tend to be distributed in sex-specific ways.” These differences are not the result of gender roles or sex stereotypes. They are a matter of what comes naturally to moms and dads, what moms and dads enjoy doing with their children.

As I explain in “Truth Overruled,” dads play important roles in the formation of both their sons and their daughters. As the sociologist David Popenoe of Rutgers University explains, “[t]he burden of social science evidence supports the idea that gender-differentiated parenting is important for human development and that the contribution of fathers to childrearing is unique and irreplaceable.” Popenoe concludes:

We should disavow the notion that “mommies can make good daddies,” just as we should disavow the popular notion . . . that “daddies can make good mommies.” . . . The two sexes are different to the core, and each is necessary—culturally and biologically—for the optimal development of a human being.

What are the distinctive gifts of mothers and fathers? Wilcox reports, “Among the many distinctive talents that mothers bring to the parenting enterprise, three stand out: their capacity to breastfeed, their ability to understand infants and children, and their ability to offer nurture and comfort to their children.” And fathers, Wilcox writes, “excel when it comes to discipline, play, and challenging their children to embrace life’s challenges.”

Children of each sex, moreover, benefit from the distinct and complementary attention of a mother and father. Consider what dads do for their sons and daughters.

Fathers tend to be the ones who engage in what sociologists call “rough and tumble play”—teaching their boys that it’s all right to put people in headlocks but not to bite, pull hair or gouge eyes. Fathers help their boys channel their distinctively masculine tendencies into productive activities. When this doesn’t happen, social costs run high. Wilcox writes, “[C]riminals come from broken homes at a disproportionate rate: 70 percent of juveniles in state reform schools, 72 percent of adolescent murderers, and 60 percent of rapists grew up in fatherless homes.” Fathers matter for their boys.

Fathers also matter for their daughters. Because dads, on average and for the most part, tend to be larger than moms and have deeper voices than moms, they tend to be better at scaring away bad boyfriends. And because dads were boys themselves, they know what the wrong sort of boy might be looking for in their daughters. As a result, dads are more likely to police whom their daughters are dating. A married father and mother are models of a good male-female relationship for their daughter.

Wilcox reports that “35 percent of girls in the United States whose fathers left before age 6 became pregnant as teenagers, that 10 percent of girls in the United States whose fathers left them between the ages of 6 and 18 became pregnant as teenagers, and that only 5 percent of girls whose fathers stayed with them throughout childhood became pregnant.” Would you rather have a 35- or a 5-percent chance of becoming a teenage mom?

Social science confirms the importance of marriage for children. According to the best available sociological evidence, children fare best according to virtually every indicator examined when reared by their wedded biological parents. Studies that control for other factors, including poverty and even genetics, suggest that children reared in intact homes do best in measurements of educational achievement, emotional health, familial and sexual development and delinquency and incarceration.

A study published by the left-leaning research institution Child Trends concluded:

[I]t is not simply the presence of two parents . . . but the presence of two biological parents that seems to support children’s development [emphasis in original]. . . .

. . . [R]esearch clearly demonstrates that family structure matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage. Children in single-parent families, children born to unmarried mothers, and children in stepfamilies or cohabiting relationships face higher risks of poor outcomes. . . . There is thus value for children in promoting strong, stable marriages between biological parents.

Marriage benefits everyone because separating childbearing and childrearing from marriage burdens innocent bystanders—not just children, but the whole community. When parents are unable to care for their children, someone has to step in, and that “someone” is often the state. By encouraging the marriage norms of monogamy, sexual exclusivity and permanence, the state strengthens civil society and reduces its own role.

So, yes, anthropology matters. It’s studied both philosophically and empirically. And it’s not simply a historical matter—it manifests itself in our daily lives. And the sociological evidence presented here, and in my new book, shows why marriage as the union of husband and wife matters.